Field of Invention
The present invention relates to surgical staples and staple pockets used in various surgical staplers, and more particularly to surgical staple and staple pocket for forming kidney-shaped staple.
Description of Related Arts
Various surgical staplers used for replacing needles and thread, for manual stapling, in surgery are widely used in surgery such as end-end, end-side, and side-side stapling of organs and tissues including human digestive tract organs, respiratory tract organs, and urogenital organs, in surgery for forming a channel, and in surgery for closing a cut, and are particularly suitable for staples where organs and tissues are exposed and difficult to operate, so as to reduce operative time and improve quality of surgery.
As described in US Patent Publication No. 20070194082 and 20090255978, various well-known staple shaping mechanisms of surgical staplers each mainly include: a staple cartridge and a staple anvil. Staple drivers, staples, and a cutter are mounted in the staple cartridge, where the cutter may be mounted as needed. A tissue contacting surface of the staple anvil is provided with staple pockets corresponding to the position of the staples in the staple cartridge. The staples and the staple pockets in the staple shaping mechanism of the surgical stapler have the following effects during the use of the surgical stapler. After the tissue to be stapled is clamped between the staple anvil and the staple cartridge, the staple drivers pushes the staples out of the staple cartridge, so that staple tips penetrate the clamped tissue to be stapled, and engage the staple pocket on the staple anvil, so as to bend the U-shaped staples into a B-shaped, thereby achieving the surgical purpose of stapling the tissue.
As described in US Patent Publication No. 20070194082 and 20080061109, in various well-known surgical staplers, as shown in FIG. 1 of the present invention, a staple pocket 2 on the tissue contacting surface of an anvil 1 comprises a side surface 3 and a bottom surface 4 which are formed through inward recessing on the surface of the anvil 1. Intersection lines between the side surface 3 and the bottom surface 4 of the staple pocket 2 form two staple guide lines 5 and 6 of the staple pocket 2. The staple pocket 2 forms perimeter 7 on the surface of the anvil 1. As shown in FIG. 2 of the present invention, a staple 8 in a staple cartridge (not shown) is U-shaped, and comprises a straight back span 9 and two straight staple legs 10 and 11. End portions of the legs 10 and 11 are provided with tips 12 and 13 respectively. As shown in FIG. 3 to FIG. 5 of the present invention, when a staple driver 14 pushes the staple 8 out of the staple cartridge (not shown), the tips 12 and 13 of the U-shaped staple 8 are urged against the staple pocket 2 of the anvil 1, so that the legs 10 and 11 of the U-shaped staple 8 bend along the staple guide lines 5 and 6 of the staple pocket 2, to form a B-shaped staple 15, thereby achieving the surgical purpose of tissue stapling. After the U-shaped staple 8 bends to form the B-shaped staple 15, two rings 16 and 17 are formed, so that a clamping force of the stapled tissue between the legs and the back span is distributed in the two rings 16 and 17, that is, is distributed on a length less than a half of the back span 9, which incurs larger damage to the stapled tissue. Smaller size of the rings 16 and 17 facilitates sealing and bleeding-stopping of the stapled tissue, but makes healing of surrounding tissues slower. Larger size of the rings 16 and 17 facilitates healing of surrounding tissues, but results in poor sealing of the stapled tissue and a poor hemostatic effect. Generally speaking, the edge of the stapled tissue is required to facilitate sealing and bleeding-stopping, and the inner side of the edge of the stapled tissue is required to facilitate healing of the surrounding tissues. In order to achieve the surgical effect, staple cartridges loaded with U-shaped staples having legs of different heights and/or a staple anvil provided with staple pockets in different depths are required to be adopted, the surgical staples and the staple pockets of this kind of surgical stapler increase the difficulty in machining and mounting of the instrument, thereby increasing the cost of the instrument. On the other hand, when the staple 8 bends to form a B-shaped closed staple 15, the tips 12 and 13 of the staple 15 converge at a midpoint of the back span 9, so that in order to achieve the surgical purpose of tissue stapling, for tissues to be stapled and varying in clamping thickness, U-shaped staples having legs of different heights are required to be used. Therefore, during surgery the thickness of the tissue to be stapled is required to be determined first, and then the staple cartridge of U-shaped staples having legs of a different height is used. The specifications of the staple cartridge loaded with U-shaped staples having legs of different heights are limited, and normally for each difference of 0.5 mm in the tissue clamping thickness, there is a specification, so that the surgical staple and the staple pocket of this kind cannot meet surgical requirements of tissues varying in thicknesses to be stapled, thereby deteriorating the surgical effect, increasing the difficulty in surgery, and increasing surgical costs. Therefore, the surgical staple and the staple pocket are required to be improved.
As described in US Patent Publication No. 20090255978: as shown in FIG. 1 of the present invention, a staple pocket 2 on the tissue contacting surface of an anvil 1 comprises a side surface 3 and a bottom surface 4 which are formed through inward recessing on the surface of the anvil 1. Intersection lines between the side surface 3 and the bottom surface 4 of the staple pocket 2 form two staple guide lines 5 and 6 of the staple pocket 2. The staple pocket 2 forms perimeter 7 on the surface of the anvil 1. As shown in FIG. 6 of the present invention, an staple 18 of a surgical stapler in a staple cartridge (not shown) comprises a W-shaped back span 19 and two straight legs 20 and 21. End portions of the legs 20 and 21 are provided with tips 22 and 23 respectively. As shown in FIG. 7 to FIG. 9 of the present invention, two protruding parts 24 and 25 on the W-shaped back span 19 of the staple 18 correspond to positions of two recessed grooves 26 and 27 on the staple pocket 2 of the anvil 1 respectively. When the staple driver 28 pushes the staple 18 out of the staple cartridge (not shown), the tips 22 and 23 of the staple 18 are urged against the staple pocket 2 of the anvil 1, so that the two legs 20 and 21 of the staple 18 bend along staple guide lines 5 and 6 of the staple pocket 2 to form a B-shaped staple 29, thereby achieving the surgical purpose of tissue stapling. Therefore, when tissue to be stapled and having the same clamping thickness are stapled, the surgical requirements of facilitating sealing and bleeding-stopping of the edge of the stapled tissue and facilitating healing of the surrounding tissue of the inner side of the edge of the stapled tissue are met respectively by adopting the staple anvil provided with the staple pocket of the same depth and adopting the staple cartridge loaded with staples having legs of the same height and having the W-shaped back spans 19 having the protruding parts 24 and 25 of different heights. However, when the staple 18 bends to form the staple 29 in the shape of a complete B, the tips 22 and 23 of the staple 29 also converge at a midpoint of the W-shaped back span 19, so that a clamping force of the stapled tissue between the legs 20 and 21 and the back span 19 is distributed in the two rings of the B-shaped staple 29, that is, is distributed on a length less than a half of the back span 19, which incurs large damage to the stapled tissue. Further, in order to achieve the surgical purpose of tissue stapling, for tissue varying in clamping thickness to be stapled, staples having legs of different heights are required to be used. Therefore, during surgery the thickness of the tissue to be stapled is required to be determined first, and then the staple cartridge with staples having legs of a different height is used. The specifications of the staple cartridge loaded with staples having legs of different heights are limited, and normally for each difference of 0.5 mm in the tissue clamping thickness, there is a specification, so that the surgical staple the staple pocket of this kind cannot meet surgical requirements of tissues varying in thicknesses to be stapled, thereby deteriorating the surgical effect, increasing the difficulty in surgery, and increasing surgical costs. Therefore, the surgical staple and the staple pocket are required to be improved.
As described in US Patent Publication No. 20110087276: as shown in FIG. 2 of the present invention, an staple 8 in a staple cartridge (not shown) is U-shaped, and comprises a straight back span 9 and two straight legs 10 and 11. End portions of the legs 10 and 11 are provided with tips 12 and 13 respectively. As shown in FIG. 10 of the present invention, the tissue contacting surface of a staple anvil 30 is provided with two separate staple pockets 31 and 32, which respectively comprise side surfaces 33 and 34 and bottom surfaces 35 and 36 formed through inward recessing on the surface of the staple anvil 30. Intersection lines between the side surface 33 and the bottom surface 35 form two staple guide lines 37 and 38 of the staple pocket 31. Intersection lines between the side surface 34 and the bottom surface 36 form two staple guide lines 39 and 40 of the staple pocket 32. The two staple pockets 31 and 32 form perimeters 41 and 42 on the surface of the staple anvil 30 respectively. As shown in FIG. 11 to FIG. 13 of the present invention, when a staple driver 43 pushes the staple 8 out of the staple cartridge (not shown), the tips 12 and 13 of the staple 8 are urged against the staple pockets 31 and 32 of the staple anvil 30 respectively, so that the two legs 10 and 11 of the staple 8 bend along the staple guide lines 37 and 38 of the staple pocket 31 and the staple guide lines 39 and 40 of the staple pocket 32 respectively, to form a spiral staple 44, thereby achieving the surgical purpose of tissue stapling. When the two legs 10 and 11 of the staple 8 bend to form the spiral staple 44, the tips 12 and 13 of the staple 8 do not converge at a midpoint of the back span 9, so that tissues varying in clamping thickness to be stapled do not require staples having legs of different heights to be used, that is, the staple cartridge loaded with the staples having the legs being the same in height is applicable to stapling tissues varying in clamping thickness. However, a large spacing 47 is formed between the spiral staple 44 and the crossing legs 45 and 46, which is likely to incur leakage and bleeding at the edge of the stapled tissue, so that in order to facilitate sealing and bleeding-stopping of the edge of the stapled tissue, an embodiment of the surgical stapler using the spirally shaped staples in the US Patent Publication No. 20110087276 uses more rows of staples than the surgical stapler using B-shaped staples, which increases the volume of the surgical stapler and the stapling width of the stapled tissue, thereby not only shrinking the application scope of the surgery using the surgical stapler but also increasing the cost of the surgical stapler. Therefore, the surgical staple and the staple pocket are required to be improved.
It can be obviously seen from the above that, a large number of varieties of surgical staplers have been designed, and the development work of the staples and the staple pockets for new surgical staplers continues, so as to further improve the surgical staplers that are annually extensively used around the world, aiming at achieving the surgical purpose of reliable tissue stapling, making the use convenient, and reducing the costs.